The race for sponsorships, an exhausting sport for presidential candidates, forced to spend hours courting mayors to grant them their signatures before March 4, the fateful closing date for sponsorships. In Marsais, near Surgères in Charente-Maritime, the young mayor Steve Gabet chose an original method to choose who to support.
At 36, Steve Gabet, for whom this is his first term as mayor, declares himself without a label, convinced neither by the left nor by the right. In recent months, he has received several calls from the teams of presidential candidates, and even granted a few appointments. After having long refused to standhe finally changed his mind.
His method is simple: on February 22, he will connect to the website of the Constitutional Council, and “the best placed in the polls who does not yet have his signatures will receive my vote” promises Steve Gabet. “Including if it’s the far right, the far left, says the mayor. If a candidate manages to have a political base, and a high enough percentage, who am I to prevent the population from voting for him?
“If we limit the choice, democracy is no longer there”
But be careful, specifies the mayor of Marsais: to sponsor is not to support. “We as mayors, especially rural ones, we are apolitical because we have to manage everything. Supporting a candidacy for us is giving the power to the people to vote. If we limit the choice, democracy is no longer the”assures Steve Gabet, already very critical of this Republic whose great representatives are, according to him, disconnected from the field and from its elected officials.
His method, Steve Gabet invites all other elected officials to follow him in his approachwhen he is convinced of it, “95% of rural mayors don’t grant sponsorship for fear of getting a tag on their back.”